1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to improving product processing operations and, more particularly, to a method of improving the operations process employed within the United States Postal Service (USPS) to process flat mail pieces.
2. Background Description
The sorting of mail is a very complex, time consuming task. In general, the sorting of mail is processed through many stages, including front end and back end processes, which sort and sequence the mail in delivery order sequence. These processes can either be manual or automated, depending on the mail sorting facility or the type of mail to be sorted such as packages, flats, letter and the like. A host of other factors may also contribute to the automation of the mail sorting, from budgetary concerns to modernization initiatives to access to appropriate technologies to a host of other factors.
In general, however, most modern facilities have taken major steps toward automation by the implementation of a number of technologies. These technologies include, amongst others, letter sorters, parcel sorters, advanced material handling flat sorters and the like. As a result of these developments, postal facilities have become quite automated over the years, considerably reducing mail processing costs.
In current processing operations, the flat mail (i.e., magazines, catalogues, brochures and the like) operations of the United States Postal Service (USPS) includes an automated sort to the individual carrier level, with further manual processing required to place the flats in delivery point sequence (DPS), also known as carrier walk sequence. Recently, though, the USPS initiated development of a Flats Sequencing System (FSS) which is aimed at fully automating the flat mail stream, including the sequencing of the flats in DPS. In this initiative, the USPS intends to finalize the automation of flat mail by sorting flat mail into DPS, prior to distribution to the carrier. This will reduce much of the manual sorting required by the carrier, thus increasing overall time the carrier actually spends delivering the mail.
By way of illustration, FIG. 1 shows the flats processing operations currently implemented by the USPS from the regional processing center through the local delivery units (DU), commonly known as local post offices, for example. This implementation is not especially efficient and, in fact, requires, at least three sorting passes using up to three different sorting machines, in addition to extensive manual intervention. Also, this process cannot sort and sequence late arriving mail pieces prior to delivery to a carrier.
By way of illustration, in current operations, regional postal facilities automatically sort the flat mail pieces to carrier route levels; but, the sort still requires manual DPS by the carrier. In this illustration, the flat mail pieces originate from many different sources, including other regional postal facilities, local incoming mail, as well as a host of other processing facilities such as, for example, magazine and catalog bulk mailers.
In this illustration, the mail pieces from these different processing locales may be presented to the sorting postal facility at different sorting levels, e.g., carrier level, regional level and the like. As an example, magazine and catalog bulk mailers and some regional postal facilities may provide the flat mail pieces in a carrier route sort; whereas, other regional facilities and the incoming flat mail pieces may be in no particular sort order. Instead, the local incoming flat mail pieces may simply be in carts for a particular local region, in no specific order.
In the incoming mail operations, the mail is first “opened” (180) which consists of taking the mail off carts for distribution to different machines. Once the mail is opened, the mail is either (i) prepared for machine operations (035) or (ii) directly inducted to one of three sorting operations, including an incoming primary operation (334), an incoming secondary operation (816) or a manual incoming primary operation (170). As can be envisioned, though, the preparation operations are not trivial operations, and require extensive manual labor at the arrival dock and/or automation via bundle sorters. This upfront work is required to ensure that the mail does not undergo unnecessary sortation, based on the worksharing incentives provided by the USPS. For example, the product may already be in a carrier sorted order, and thus can be forwarded directly to the DPS operation, which presently occurs by the carriers at the DU.
If the flat mail pieces are routed to the incoming primary operation (334), the flat mail pieces will be sorted to a certain level such as, for example, to a five digit level of the zip code, sometimes referred to as a zone. On the other hand, when the flat mail pieces are routed to the incoming secondary operation (816), the flat mail pieces may be sorted to the actual carrier routes within the zone. This is known as a “zone-based” processing.
Although the flat mail pieces are typically routed directly to the incoming primary operation (334), some flat mail pieces may be initially directed to the incoming secondary operation (816) for processing. For example, if the flat mail pieces have already been sorted to a certain sort level, these flat mail pieces may be fed directed to the incoming secondary operation (816). However, as seen in FIG. 1, only a small majority of the flat mail pieces are initially routed to the incoming secondary operation (816).
In a small set of instances, some of the flat mail pieces are routed to the manual operation (170). In these cases, the flat mail pieces cannot be sorted by automated processes due to many different reasons such as, for example, unreadable address information. The manual operation, of course, adds to the overall processing costs and reduction of efficiency of the operations.
In any event, the above operations are used to sort the flat mail pieces to a carrier level, i.e., a carrier route sort. This sorted mail is then provided to the incoming dispatch (126) and transported to the DUs. However, some flat mail pieces may be sorted to other high volume local destinations such as hospitals, colleges, large businesses or rural areas directly from the incoming primary operation (334).
On the other end of processing, bulk mailing is provided to the incoming dispatch (126) or provided to a small parcel bundle sorter (SPBS) operation (137). The preparation of the bundles in the SPBS operation includes sorting the bundles to segregate them into various presort levels. This sorting operation results in occasional breakage and damage of the bundles, and additionally requires extensive human staffing.
After the mail is provided to the SPBS (137), a portion of the flat mail pieces are prepared in the manner described above (035), and then fed to the incoming primary operation (814, 334), the manual incoming primary operation (170) or the incoming secondary operation (816, 336). Once the flat mail pieces are properly sorted, this bulk mail may then be sent to the incoming dispatch (126) or to another processing and distribution center.
Once the sorted flat mail pieces arrive at the DU, it is manually sequenced by the carrier. However, prior to this manual sequencing, late arriving flat mail pieces are first sorted into carrier route, manually by a clerk at operational stage (777). Then, these late arriving mail pieces and the previously sorted flat mail pieces are then manually sequenced into walk order sequence by the carrier along with additional bulk mail, such as saturation mail, at the DPS operational stage (740). The mail is then delivered at operation stage (739).
Currently 100% of the flat mail must be manually sorted to DPS, which is a very time consuming and labor intensive process. This is mainly due to the fact that the best automation can achieve in the allowable time is sorting to the carrier level. In addition, current processing operations cannot efficiently sort late arriving mail. At best, the late arriving mail is received at the regional level and receives only a quick automatic sort to zone level, which includes undergoing two manual sortation passes at the DU to achieve DPS. As such, late-arriving mail can only be sorted to the destination post office, where it is manually sorted to the carrier level. This manual sorting takes 2 to 3 hours each delivery day per carrier, multiplied by 300,000 carriers nationwide.
Also, by using the current processing operations, all sorting by the sorting facility must be completed and delivered to a carrier no later then, for example, 8 AM. This allows the carrier ample time to sequence the mail in DPS. To reduce the inefficient manual processing at the DU, current processes must be modified to accommodate automation of the DPS function without impacting the dispatch schedules currently in place.